With sharp, precise prose, Ewing's stories remind of Annie Proulx and Denis Johnson. These are Polaroids collected on a shelf, forgotten, then viewed again to tell of the lives they once chronicled—now dusty, scratched, lost. The effect is magnificent. —Christian Kiefer, author of PHANTOMS “Ewing’s debut tunes to a haunting static.” —FOREWORD REVIEWS "These landscapes, these characters, this prose, my god, it grabs you and it doesn't let you go." —Kevin Wilson, author of THE FAMILY FANG The middle ground is a place we’ve all crossed, the halfway point between who you are and who you want to be. In Jeff Ewing’s collection of stories, his diversely American characters call it home. From a story of a man living in the shadow of an abandoned missile silo that may hold the answer to a mystery of vanished children, to one of a small-town beauty tentatively courting stardom, Ewing’s sparse, musical prose illuminates lives lived in that space between fear and courage, hope and regret, life and death. Fog remembers, revenge beckons, and loneliness gives birth to fragile beauty—while in the distance the future gleams on a car hood, daring bold hands to seize it.